Heli Hartikainen is a boundary-breaking saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and sound artist. The music of Hartikainen, one of Finland’s boldest improvisers in the fields of experimental music and ambient jazz, plays with tonal textures and hypnotic, ever-evolving sound fields. Hartikainen is bringing her Chronovariations project to Lämpiöklubi at Sello Hall, in which the sound of the tenor saxophone is complemented by metal plates and tubes played by electromagnetic actuators placed around the audience.

Hartikainen’s debut solo album Chronovariations is a work for tenor saxophone, live electronics and sonorous metal objects. In the work, acoustic and electronic sounds overlap and create chains of variations, sound masses and landscapes. Selected metal plates and tubes from a Helsinki scrapyard are transformed into resonant instruments on the album alongside the saxophone. The acoustically sharp sound of the scrap metal can be heard in both magnificent harmonic resonances and intensely tremulating distortions.

CHRONOVARIATIONS was awarded the Finnish Critics’ Association Critics’ Spurs honorary prize for best artistic breakthrough in 2025 and was nominated for an Emma Award for Best Jazz Album in 2024.

Production team:

Heli Hartikainen, tenor saxophone, composition, conceptualisation

Esther Calderón Morales, live electronics and programming

Kaj Mäki-Ullakko, sound technician

Duration 1 h